


Found Family

by IRegretNothingAndEverything



Series: HLVRAI Requests [14]
Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Family Fluff, Fluff, Found Family, Sick Fic, horrible timing for a sick fic but whatever, low hurt/high comfort, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27128468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IRegretNothingAndEverything/pseuds/IRegretNothingAndEverything
Summary: Gordon, sick, thinks that it's easier not to tell the science team and just power through it with Joshua. They disagree.
Series: HLVRAI Requests [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1939135
Comments: 5
Kudos: 120





	Found Family

**Author's Note:**

> Request: Found Family Science Team? Please? Hugs? Hugs Found Family Science Team? Grandpas hug the small Joshua boy? Please?
> 
> Not exactly, but uhhh Found Family time.

“Ughh...” Gordon slowly slid off the couch onto the floor, taking one of the pillows with him. He was half wrapped in a blanket, nose red from the large tissue usage. The trash can was just barely avoided, so that Gordon didn’t have to clean up the thousands of tissues from the floor. 

Luckily for him, Joshua was asleep in the other room. They had both picked up a bug, and, while Gordon knew it wasn’t anything too serious, it still sucked. Joshua was managing to sleep through it, but Gordon on the other hand? Well Gordon was ninety percent sure he had gotten a worse strain of it, somehow, despite it being Joshua that passed it along to him. 

When someone began to knock on the door, Gordon just groaned louder from the floor and threw a pillow in the general direction of the door. He had no time for this, nor energy, and thus closed his eyes and dragged a second pillow down off the couch to cover his ears with it, to block out the repeated knocking. 

Eventually it stopped, but then the door clicked open, despite Gordon knowing he had yet to unlock it, and he sat up quickly, and then fell right back over from the head rush. 

“Gordon!” He blinked blearily over at the approaching figure, and realized it was Coomer. Oh. Oh yeah, the science team all had keys to his house. Huh. “Are you alright? You weren’t answering our calls, and you missed the picnic today.” 

Ah fuck. That was today. Gordon blinked a few times at Coomer, then looked around blearily eyed. Where had he thrown his phone? “Fuck uh... shit, sorry.” He coughed, forcing himself to sit up to cough into his elbow, a scratching deep cough that hurt his chest. Coomer thumped him carefully on the back, and Gordon slowly relaxed from the fit, smiling at him. 

“Mr. Freeman, you could have told us you were sick...” Tommy said, and Gordon shrugged a shoulder. 

“I didn’t wanna bother you with it. Would’ve texted you that I was gonna miss the thing today if I knew where I had put my phone.” He sniffled slightly, then reached past Coomer, yoinking two of the tissues out of the box behind it. He blew his nose in one, tossing it into the trash can, before tearing the other in half, carefully rolling and folding it in on itself, before pressing either side into one of his nostrils, effectively giving himself a tissue nose ring that blocked his nose entirely. 

He wasn’t dripping snot, so he took it as a win. 

The looks the others were giving him were... debatable. Gordon grinned at him, then struggled up to his feet. Coomer frowned, helping him up. “Thanks Coomer... Gotta check on Joshie. He’s sick too, not as bad as me I don’t think.” He mumbled, blinking a few times to clear his vision before going to walk.  
He was stopped by Bubby, who, at some point, had moved over to next to him. Bubby placed his hands on Gordon’s shoulders, pushing him down onto the couch. Normally, Gordon might have been able to resist it, but now, he just sat, looking up at Bubby confused. 

“Tommy go check on Joshua.” Bubby said over his shoulder to the already leaving Tommy, who waved a hand as he disappeared into the hall. “Coomer, soup time. Benrey, sit here with Gordon to make sure he doesn’t try to do anything stupid like stand without good reason.” 

Benrey nodded, moving over to settle next to Gordon, and, despite feeling like he should do something, anything, to stop them, he felt fatigued enough that he slumped to one side, laying back down. Benrey got up, just for a moment, to return Gordon’s lost pillows, and Gordon tugged the blanket around himself carefully. 

Tommy came out of Joshua’s room carrying the four year old in his arms. Joshua still looked bleary, but awake, sniffling softly. Gordon smiled at him, and Joshua waved a hand back, before turning his upper body away from Tommy and towards Gordon, leaning for him. Tommy managed to get over to him in time so Joshua didn’t flip himself out of Tommy’s arms, and Gordon took Joshua carefully, letting the toddler lay his head on Gordon’s chest quietly. 

“Need to blow your nose bud?” Joshua shook his head, pointing towards Tommy, who smiled. 

“He had a box in there, so I, I helped him with that already.” Gordon nodded slightly, wrapping his arm around Joshua carefully, rubbing him on the back slowly. Joshua settled against his chest, and Gordon waved a hand at Benrey. 

“Put on uhh... Pocoyo. Netflix. Comfort show thing for him.” Gordon mumbled, and Benrey hummed in response, sweet voice spreading around them as he did, grabbing the remote. “Coomer and Bubby are here, bud.” 

Joshua managed a tired smile up at him, and Gordon smiled back. 

“They’re making soup.” 

Joshua’s grin grew for a moment, before he lay his head back onto Gordon’s chest to watch Pocoyo, Gordon smiled, pressing a careful kiss to the top of Joshua’s head, and settled back against his pillow stack. 

The next thing he knew, he was being carefully shaken away by Tommy. Joshua’s weight had been removed from his chest, and Gordon blinked blearily, glancing around. The tissue in his nose was far grosser than he usually let it get, and he groaned, sitting up, covering his nose with his hand so he could pull it out and throw it away without Tommy seeing the nastiness that came from him. 

“Sorry Mr. Freeman. Soups done if you’re feeling up for it.” Gordon hummed, then nodded, blowing his nose again, before standing carefully. A glance into the kitchen saw Bubby, currently holding a very clinging Joshua on his lap. Joshua always got clingy when he was sick, and Gordon moved over, as if to take Joshua away again, but Bubby just fed Joshua soup, quietly talking about stars to him. 

Gordon took that as a good sign and settled in his own chair. 

They were small bowls, but god, eating it felt like a chore. He could barely swallow with his throat at the moment, but he knew he had to choke something down, or he’d get too dehydrated. That was not something he wanted to deal with. 

Still, it felt exhausting, and, eventually, Gordon lay his head on the table, unconsciously mirroring Joshua in that moment, who had shifted and stopped eating, laying his head against Bubby’s shoulder instead. 

“Alright, I think that’s enough. Back to the couch with you.” Gordon felt Coomer’s hands on his arms, and he chuckled, standing carefully, Joshua lifted his head towards Gordon, who held out his hands towards him in question. Joshua seemed to debate this for a moment, before shaking his head, and laying it back on Bubby’s shoulder. 

Bubby followed moments after, sitting near Gordon’s legs with Joshua on his lap. Coomer stopped by them for just a moment to help Joshua blow his nose before moving on to clean up the house a bit, which Gordon had admittedly let get a little bit of a mess over the time that he was sick. Gordon took that opportunity to redo his tissue nose ring and lay back down carefully. 

As Gordon began to drift off once more to the sounds of Pocoyo and sweet voice, he wondered why he hadn’t just called them in the first place. It was far easier to have them help than try and deal with it all alone. Perhaps he shouldn’t underestimate his family so much.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes the tissue ring thing is something I actually do. Really effective, but also tends to give you nose bleeds. It's a give and take.


End file.
